Lee Simmonds: Kaleidoscopes

Animals, figures, luminescent patterns and shadowy forms collide and swirl on the canvas in a seemingly endless dance of colour and light. Kaleidoscopes, Lee Simmonds’ third solo exhibition at Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery marks a new approach for the artist in which he allows himself to be guided less by concept or formal technique and more by the materiality of the paint itself and the movement of colour. The result is a series of other-worldly paintings where forms appear to melt and morph into one another, offering a fresh perspective each time we return to contemplate the surface.

The starting point for many of these latest paintings was an abstract mass of paint, which Simmonds rapidly applied on to the canvas in a largely instinctive manner, while at the same time limiting his colour palette to maintain a sense of clarity. The paint was then left to dry before Simmonds returned to the surface, finding himself now able to discern a multitude of possible shapes, lines and compositions. The show’s title references this playful approach, but also the ways in which our perspective is altered by light and movement. As Simmonds notes, his distance from the surface as well as the process of the paint drying and becoming less reflective is, at least partly, what enables him to see its potential.

In Untitled (Snails) we see this process unfold before our eyes as multiple forms and figures rise up out of a green mass of paint that appears at the top of the canvas as dense and feathered as a meadow or forest of trees and at the bottom, rippling like a dark pond. Within this strange, in-between world, a figure fishes his arms into the depths, giant turquoise snails cling to the side of his head, a duck nestles into the curve of his torso and the curved neck of white goose frames an orange sky. Meanwhile, other, murky and fluorescent shapes shift suggestively before the gaze.

This idea of duality or multiplicity runs throughout the show – a defiance perhaps against the ways in which the static nature of an image, one moment caught in time, can create a fixed and often one-sided perspective, but also reflecting on generative modes of image-making whereby one pattern or line leads on to another. To create paintings such as Drawing Room Simmonds used stencils from elements of other pieces to land upon an entirely new composition, while other works employ translucent glazes that allow him to gradually build up layers of mark making without losing what’s beneath. The former process reflects on the history of kaleidoscopes as a generative tool that was used to produce new patterns that were made into fabrics, while the latter traces the artist’s gaze and hand as he follows the paint to delineate a form and also reveals the seemingly endless possibilities of a single surface.

In this way, Simmonds not only pushes the boundaries of how painting has traditionally been perceived but also challenges its potential redundancy in the rapidly changing world of AI-powered art forms. It is an expansive and evolving medium, he suggests, one that can ignite the imagination and unlock new ways of seeing.